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I think writers are very anxious.

Science fiction writers have usually been very poor prognosticators of the future, either in literary or technological terms, and that's because we're all too human and, I think, have the tendency to see what we want to or, in the case of those more paranoid, what we fear.

I think that most writers who wait until they're inspired to write are just waiting for the fear to subside.

I think, as journalists, we sometimes are afraid to enter into the emotional lives and the complications of the lives of the people we write about - we don't really have the space and the room to deal with those things. But as a novelist, that's precisely what you're writing about.

Authors worry. We worry about writing. Worry about our editors, our agents, our reviews, and our readers. We worry about everything, including all forms of social media including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and personal websites.

Every writer knows that unless you were born gifted with either supreme confidence or outsize ego, handing in your work holds, in some cases, admitted terror. If that's too strong, at least fairly high anxiety.

That's the thing about fiction writers: what seems alarming or particular or perverse about them is simply the shape of their brain - they cannot be otherwise.

I think, with most writers, their neurosis is finishing things. I have a different neurosis. I'm terribly anxious when it's not finished. Then I become really difficult to live with.

The best thing about being a writer is it gives you readers who understand your deepest feelings and fears.

I think writers rush in where everybody is very frightened to tread.